Protect your ‘henhouse’ through relationship with God

After a couple of days with no eggs, I decided that I should check the nest mid-afternoon. I went out to the henhouse and stepped up on the roost so that I could see into the nest.
As I leaned toward the nest, something gray appeared to fly away from the nest. At first I thought it was bird, and then it dawned on me … a SNAKE!
I reached into the nest and grabbed the two brown eggs that were there. One of them was wet, and so I thought it was freshly laid. I hollered at Mike because the snake was up on the rafters above the nest. Mike grabbed the snake and killed it.
After all the excitement, it dawned on me that the egg was wet because the snake had its mouth on it. I had interrupted his meal! It was snake slobber on the egg!
I went in the house and washed the egg and my hands.
How did the chicken snake know that there were eggs in the nest? It is its nature to know these things. It knew that we had chickens, and so that usually means eggs.
We would not have known that a snake was around if I had not happened out there at that precise moment. We are new to raising chickens so we were a little slow to realize anything was amiss.
The chickens had just started laying eggs, and we didn’t know how many to expect.
We now have a ceramic egg in the nest so if another snake comes along.
The snake will swallow it, and voila, end of snake.
Our homes are like henhouses. We have children. Usually where there are adults, there are children. One will also hear kid noises and see toys and other things that let you know kids are there.
The enemy, Satan, is like the snake in the henhouse. You don’t even realize he is around, and he is in there trying to devour our kids, right under our eyes. He doesn’t usually come in the front door with a big sign on him saying he is a danger.
The enemy slips in through a crack or crevice in the wall or foundation. He can come in places that you would not think anything could come in.
What are some of the cracks in the walls of our homes? Well, let’s see. Perhaps, the television and the programs we watch. Even the cartoons have stuff in them that should not be in them. The language on the tv is sometimes stuff that we would never dream of saying.
What about the books in our home? Vampires, witches, wizards, and things like that are in the storylines of some of the most popular kid books.
We need to be vigilant about what comes into our home. We need to always be on the lookout for a crack in the wall that the enemy could slip through. We need to chink those holes so that the cold won’t be able to penetrate.
Other ways to protect our henhouse is to be involved in a good church, pray together, study the Bible, and teach your babies to grow up in the loving hand of the Father.

Jan Allbritton is a Diboll resident who teaches at St. Cyprian’s Episcopal School.